Chances are that you have encountered a pop-up advertisement at some time in your online life. These pop-ups can appear out of nowhere and surprise you, and if you panic you may make a stupid mistake.

Often, these ads offer fake free goods, threaten you, falsely tell you of required updates, or redirect your browsing. None of these are behaviors you want to experience, so it’s wise to protect your browser of choice against these pop-up ads. Read on to find out how.

Links Can Be Deceiving

Okay, so you’re trying to be safe and watch where you visit. You want to install some software, so you search for Adobe Reader and get to this page:

Or one like this:

Neither of these pages are the Adobe Reader you’re looking for. Although both of the URLs contain the words Adobe and Reader, they’re still phonies. The first website uses the text after the “/?” to make you think you’re on the correct page; but you can place anything here and the page won’t change.

The second is simply a junk website that doesn’t even attempt to look real. Whenever you see pages like this that are primarily text and advertisements, leave them alone. If you’re truly not sure whether a download link is legitimate or not, use an aggregate site like FileHippo to find what you’re looking for.

It’s also worth noting that search engine ads shouldn’t be trusted. Google marks the first result or two as ads. but it’s easy to forget that when you’re in a hurry. Take the extra second to double-check that you’re on the real website when you download. Upon examination, the ad’s URL doesn’t look even close to what it should be, and you won’t be getting the real download from it.

Browser-Specific Tips

Once you’ve reviewed (and put into practice) the broad tips to keep yourself safe, here’s what you should set up and double-check in each browser to dodge pop-ups.

Internet Explorer

For IE, head to the gear icon in the top-right, then click Internet Options.

Make sure that your homepage is something that you recognize. If it’s a weird search engine that pushes ad-filled websites to the top of its results, you’ll experience more pop-ups.

On the Privacy Tab, you’ll be able to adjust your pop-up blocker’s settings. Make sure it’s actually turned on, of course. If you click Settings, you’ll be able to adjust its aggressiveness. Medium should be fine, but if you’re experiencing lots of pop-ups and don’t mind having to bypass the blocker for legitimate ones, go ahead and try High mode.

Finally, check for any malicious add-ons that may be spawning ads. You’ll find this under the Programs tab. If you discover anything weird, simply click Disable to stop it.

Firefox

To make sure you’re protected in Firefox, head to the three bars menu in the top left, followed by Options.

The Content page houses the pop-up blocker. Make sure it’s on; other than that you can’t change its intensity like in Internet Explorer.

While you’re here, it’s also a good idea to head to the Security tab and make sure that you are warned when sites try to install add-ons. This is an uncommon problem, but it’s always best to be safe. Also be sure that Firefox is blocking attack websites and forgeries for you; there’s no reason to turn these off.

An option you can enable that will stop sites from redirecting you is found in the Advanced tab, under the General header. If you check this option, Firefox will always ask for permission when a site tries to change. For most people, though, this behavior will get irritating, since many legitimate sites behave like this, and as such it isn’t worth the hassle.

Finally, don’t forget to check your add-ons. On the same menu where you found Options, choose Add-Ons and look for any that are shady or that you didn’t install.

Once you’re there, head to “Content Settings…” under the Privacy header.

You’ll find the pop-up settings about halfway down. Like Firefox, it can only be toggled on or off.

Heavy-Handed Solutions

If you’ve educated yourself about what sites you visit and taken advantage of your browser’s built-in protection, yet still have issues with pop-ups, you can try a stronger solution. Both of these browser add-ons will assist with defeating pop-ups.

If You Are Caught In A Pop-Up

Being caught in a nasty pop-up happens to the best of us. The next time one fills your screen, don’t panic. Keep calm and follow these steps.

Do not download or click anything. No matter what type of ad you encounter, it’s important to first make sure that you do not comply with it. Ignore statements telling you your plugins are outdated; if you proceed and install the malware it’s offering you, you’re going to have a bigger issue than an outdated plugin.

And of course, never input personal information such as your address or financial info into a pop-up.

As you can see below, this particular pop-up went as far as to get a download ready for me, which could fool you if you were looking for a legitimate download already. Keep an eye out for potentially harmful file extensions when downloading, especially .exe files.

If you’re concerned about a plugin, after you safely close the ad use a site like Mozilla’s plugin check to see if you actually need to update Flash Player or anything like it.

If you’re not using Chrome, you’ll have to open up the Windows Task Manager by pressing the Control + Shift + Escape shortcut, or by typing Task Manager into the Windows search bar. Find your browser and kill it off. The pop-up below had lockdown on its tab; no matter how you try to close it the dialogue kept coming up. Using Chrome’s task manager, I was able to defuse it.

Still Getting Pop-Ups? Check For Malware

If you’re browsing safe websites and still running into a barrage of pop-ups, your computer could be infected with malware. Usually, if you’ve checked your browser for malicious extensions as outlined above, you’ll be in the clear, but especially nasty malware can re-install its browser add-ons and spawn tons of ads.

Pop Till You Drop

Pop-up ads can be frustrating, confusing, and scary. Once you know how to avoid them, however, you won’t have any issues coming away from them unharmed. Just remember to be careful where you visit and never install anything that a website tells you to. It’s always wise to visit the website in question yourself, just as you should never click a link in an email telling you that you need to re-input your password.

So, this article is about stopping popups in browsers.... This is the worst site I have ever been on from a mobile device for popups. It is the most unusable experience. you have an ad provider or something on your site that is taking over the site. It took 30 minutes to type this short message. I only took the time becasue the site content is good, experience not so much.

Ben,
I forgot to mention that sometimes it isn't necessary that I am browsing any site for the pop ups to appear on my screen...
Once I just open a tab and my internet keep turned on .... an hour later when I came back to work on my computer 23 tabs from different sites were already opened in my browser !!!

I bought a new computer last September ( Windows 8 ) and as result I bought the Word package for it... When I was paying the guy in the store, he asked me if I wanted to install the Word package I had just bought ... as I am not a computer expert, I agree with that ... So, my problems begin ... I don't know if he just went clicking YES to everything , but when I arrived at home every site that I open ( Yahoo for my mails , Google , etc. ) any site ( It doesn't matter which ) a pop up opens in my screen ...
During the time I wrote this message to you I have to stop three times to close a site that popped into my Screen ....
I think that is something from India ...
When I was in Brasil with my old computer nothing like this happened ... I don't know what to do ...
I have add block ( But it didn't stop sites like : Alibaba, Jabong , etc., from opening when I am writing an e-mail or simply browsing the facebook...
I even try what you mentioned above ( settings , block , etc. ) No results at all...
Sometimes I think I will have to Format my computer , because this problem is so annoying...

Jane, I just saw this comment as I wasn't emailed about it for some reason. Apologies about that; you can always email me at ben [at] makeuseof [dot] com if this happens again.

I haven't ever seen that tab behavior. One thing I notice, though I don't think it's related to your issue, is that you have two instanced of AdBlock installed. You do not need these; one AdBlocker is more than enough and it's heavy on resources, meaning two is totally overkill. I doubt this is linked to those junk tabs but it's worth mentioning.

I would recommend backing up your Bookmarks and other Chrome data and just reinstalling, as trying to pinpoint the issue is probably more trouble than it's worth. A refresh of the browser will be easy.

Just checked. The only thing listed as start up pages is my proper home page.
I got rid of them(the actual popups) by removing them from program files, program data, and installed programs,even checked on the "start-Run" command. I don't know where else to look.

Hmm. Could you take a screenshot of your tabs like that (throwing it on Imgur is fine) so I can see what you mean? I'm trying to think of other places those junk tabs could be hiding. Perhaps a reinstallation of Chrome is best.

I got rid of 4 popups that I let in my PC through the fake Adobe ad. Now they don't come back, but my tabs still show something loading, but they are all "unavailable" The site which I am currently waiting for, seems to take longer now. How do I get rid of these extra tabs which go nowhere?

This is great. Thank you. After being a victim of these kind of ads and navigation I have been more careful. I've used system restore back then, but now I just shut the computer, because the page wont let me navigate out of it... It's good to know I can use ctl, shft, and del to close the processes. Most of the time I have about 3 to 4 windows open. I will try it next time I encounter it. Thank you

I received a pop up this morning that claimed to be from Norton Anti Virus software. I had to bring up Task Manager to close Google Chrome. A message to Norton via Face Book advised me to buy their Ad Blocker software, claiming the pop up didn't originate from Norton. Still......it's allowing them to try and sell their software. If someone was using my company name, you can bet I would investigate. Yet they're pushing software. Time to fight back against ALL companies ALLOWING use of their name ! After all........this particular pop up IS causing people to contact Norton, thus allowing them the chance at a new subscriber !! I hate to say this but we need Internet Police !

Hi ben can you form a guide for google chrome mobile version I'm gettting pop ups for this browser now but to a more annoying extent it actually redirects your page that your one and replaces th address itself. So if you press back page then essentially you go back two pages it's like you were never on the current page.

I don't get it. you advocate this page for getting rid of pop-up ads and then your saying your ok with the ads?
This means you are getting paid by the advertisers and really should not be posting anything here on how to get rid of pop-ups. This makes you a hypocrite in my book and I will not listen to your advice on these issues.
It's like going to a "natural path" Dr. and he prescribes you modern medicine.

All I can say is that there's a difference between malicious pop-ups and ads that provide revenue for their websites.

We need the ads on MakeUseOf to survive. Without them, writers wouldn't get paid, and there would be no content for you to read (for free, I might add) and take advantage of).

We take care to ensure that our ads respect your time and browsing. We don't feature pop-up ads and all that other crap. Ours are non-intrusive.

This article was meant to protect you from the malicious, junky kind of pop-ups. I'm not telling you to block other website's pop-ups and not ours, I'm preparing you to avoid the malicious kind that want to harm you. If you look, and I linked to them in this piece, we've written more than one article on why AdBlock and the like are negative things for the Internet and should be avoided.

That's perfectly fine, too. My point in saying that it should be something you recognize was that if it's some spam/ad-filled site, it needs changed. I find that a blank tab doesn't provide much information on startup, so perhaps another page is more interesting/useful. But if you want to use a blank page, that's great.

Ben S , FYI the Quote re: the Philistines, was one of the last things Peter Jennings said about the ABC network and how they wanted him to format his evening news program, he was a great fan of the English language and wanted the/his show to his reflect that. They apparently wanted less verbosity so they could squeeze in another ...wait for it...COMMERCIAL! They are indeed at the gate so will slay them?

Well Ben, it seems that the Philistines were among the greatest enemies of the Israelites because god was angry with them, the Israelites . God then , after some time, sent a messenger to a woman who was barren and told her she would have a son, he turned out to be Samson. Samson, now grown, was a threat to the Philistines and he was in a fortified structure, I believe it was even in Gaza, when told "The Philistines are at the gate" , waiting to ambush Samson, he went to the gate tore it down and laid waste to to them. Once again I am no biblical scholar but that is my understanding perhaps there is someone more familiar with this that could elaborate

Okay, help me out here: I know websites get paid per click-thru of an ad on their site--that makes sense to me. It also makes sense that a website gets paid just for a reader "showing up" at a website; that is to say a website gets paid per eyeballs on-page even if the reader doesn't bother clicking on the ads, albeit less money than for a click-thru. Is there some way to tell that someone reading your page is suppressing your ads, so you don't get credit for the eyes on your page? I think you can safely say that the kind of person who uses ABP is also the kind of person who would never, ever in a billion years click on an online ad. I certainly never would! So you haven't lost a clic-thru, just an "eyes-on" commission, if a person uses ABP. Is that right?

I know darned well there's no way to tell if someone is over 60 years of age, which not an age anybody seems to want to market to (except adult diapers and "I've fallen and I can't get up" style advertisers, in other words, advertisers that will NEVER place ads on websites.) As an over-60 myself, I find the ads I've seen puerile and juvenile to the extreme. The ad that made me get ABP was an animated ad of a young, drunk girl in a tight, low-cut blouse waving a glass of wine around in front of her boozed up-looking face. After a few moments it revealed itself to be an advertisement for an on-line university--and not for learning how to bartend, which might have made some sense, but for a degree! Yeah, WTF was that all about. I don't need to have my intelligence insulted by con artists going for the lowest common denominator of readers for their victims, because only a mark begging to have his money taken away from him would go for that ad.

Zach, I'm not a web design expert, nor do I handle our ads/revenue, so I can't say for sure. Sites do have ways to know when you're running AdBlock; for example, NintendoLife will display a graphic in place of their ads if they detect you're running it:

I hate all this advertising and I block as much of it as I can and as for the developer of AdBlock Plus being a thief. Don't you think your comment is a little over the top? For a start if I want to buy something I will go in search of it myself. I don't want to be bombarded by bandwidth sucking advertisements.

Furthermore not to sure if you're aware of this Ben? But in some countries there are still quota's in place and what these advertisements do is eat away at such quota's. So who is the real thief here? I think you'll find the real thieves are the site owners who plaster their sites full of useless advertisements while at the same time steal your quota and the real hero's here to save the day and your wallet are developers like the AdBlock Plus developer.

Furthermore like all these so called newspapers who are turning to a subscription based system. I can honestly say I do believe it will be the beginning of the end. Simply because there is no shortage of other sites to get such information from. So try the subscription idea and I am sure you will see your readers simply disappear over night and your site will just become a thing of the past like all the others that have gone down this road.

What I consider good advertising is small, text-based ads without flashing lights, noises, and popping up. Is it really that big of a deal to deal with those?

I hate advertising too, but so does everyone. I don't think that my comment is over the top. For every person that installs AdBlock, visits sites like ours, and pays the developer, he makes money that should have gone to us. That's theft. Also, ads are in place that have no relevance to shopping, so that argument really isn't valid.

Sites full of "useless" advertisements - why are you visiting them? Ads are not useless to the site that displays them, because they need them to survive. My guess is that sites with crappy ads all over the place are shady anyway.

I never said we were going to try the subscription idea. But the only other option is an ad-based model, which is what we use... Get the picture?

Talking about popup blockers how about all these stupid slide out banners that you have on this site now. Don't you think it's a little ridiculous and over the top? For a start why do you have social media share icons that slide out when you move your mouse over an image? It's quite frustrating and it's like navigating a mine field. Furthermore why do you need so many social share options to begin with?

I don't know who your website designer is but it's obvious to me they don't have much of a clue when it comes to a designing a decent site layout that doesn't include the over use of all this social media rubbish!

Now if we could just find a way to block all this slide out garbage life would be great!

I run Ad Block (not Ad Block Plus) and when I first get the slide out banner for social media sharing, I Right click, select Ad Block and "Block this ad". Presto No More Banner! this works on most pop ups and I feel quite justified doing it because without Ad Block I would not keep reading the article, and I assume the site would like me to read it. A simple share button below the article, is all that is needed to prompt people to share. If I like the article I always look for a button to share. If I don't NO AMOUNT OF POP UPS will induce me to do so!

Ben S, I resent that you think the creator of AdBlock is a thief. You seem to be willing to ignore the fact that websites use YOUR bandwidth (and mine, and everyone else's) to display advertising. Now, when it's a site like MUO, sure, the code should be benign and reasonably lean. But when it's not--and keep in mind that even other legitimate sites farm their advertising out to servers located who-knows-where and running who-knows-what--the problems begin.

Granted, I use AdBlock Plus, and I whitelist sites whose content creators ask nicely. They're not the problem. But still, even though the blacklist is now pretty sizable, and loads every time an iframe loads, it's generally much safer than letting any old ad server load whatever it wants on my machines.

But to say that an ad-blocking creator "takes away money" from other websites is only half the story--and half a story is no story at all.

Nobody forces you to view a website. You go there to enjoy content, which they place out for free. In exchange, you have to put up with some ads. If you don't want to come to a site and "use up your bandwidth," then you don't have to.

The creator of AdBlock wouldn't be a thief if he didn't ask for money for blocking ads. In his vision of the future, everyone uses AdBlock so nobody has to see ads. Free content would effectively cease to exist, and where would we be then?

Browsing the Web at any level requires some inconvenience. Radio is free - why? Because of ads. If you pay for Sirius/XM satellite radio, you don't deal with ads because you've paid.

To use your analogy, my radio has never crashed due to an ad while I'm listening to terrestrial stations. (And I listen to WUSF 89.7, an NPR affiliate, so while there aren't many ads, we do get those REALLY LONG breaks during spring and fall campaigns, so if anything were to crash it, those would do it.)

On the other hand, rich media CAN crash a browser, and sometimes even hammer an OS, especially a Windows PC, even if there's no malware involved. I still have had problems on both iOS and Android devices using Safari, Chrome, and Mobile Firefox because of poorly served ads.

And the "nobody forces you to view a website" concept is a complete canard--specious to the core. Nobody forces me to view a website, but until an end user loads a page, nobody knows where the ads on those websites are coming from, whether memory allocation will be set properly, whether the ads will load properly, or whether they'll hose the end user's software completely.

So you're still completely off base. If web advertising were trustworthy, I would agree that ad blocking software is not fair.

Web advertising is not trustworthy. Stop being snotty about it and own up. You don't understand all the facets of the issue, and that's my whole point.

We'll have to agree to disagree here, but I think that I understand the issue just fine. I used AdBlock for years, and after switching off it I hardly have any issues. It doesn't bother me at all, and I feel better for not using it.

Don't call me snotty. I choose to suffer a bit so that credit goes where it's due.

Point of contention - you say "AdBlock" but the ad blocker you are running is "AdBlock Plus". They are COMPLETELY different sources, and AdBlock (the later one from a development standpoint) is doing some shady things, such as allowing unique IDs sent to their list of "good advertisers." Plus, their source code is not open source any more -- are they trying to hide something?

Tom, you are right that they're different blocking programs. If you're going to use one, AdBlock Plus is supported on more browsers (Firefox doesn't have a version of AdBlock) and by default it does allow some non-intrusive advertising.

However, is this really a bad thing? What's wrong with good advertising? Do you really want to block every ad in existence? You hurt the sites you visit when you do this, because we're not seeing any revenue for the content we put out. Would you like more sites to go to a paid subscription model, where you have to pay to see anything on a site?

AdBlock Plus realized how harmful they are to the Web and tried to make amends. The guy who created AdBlock asks for donations - how ironic! He wants your money for taking away the money of other sites you visit. A thief.

I do understand that ads are a third party thing - But it's the third party that profits most by allowing shady ads to sneak in - there is no penalty to them for allowing one from time to time. They still make the money. But there is a penalty to the users - and to the site because of people like me who are just fed up with the advertising companies getting away with poor policing. I tried being nice and allowing some sites to show ads - it just didn't work - the ad companies won't let it work. Within a few days I was again seeing those ads that jump, change color and broadcast loud audio as well as those trying to lure people to some shady site. They have shot themselves in the foot as more and more people will opt out of their intrusive ads as they learn how to do it. And the ones to suffer will not be the ad companies, but the sites that rely on ads to stay in business. Users cannot do anything - the sites themselves need to find a way to reign in the abusive ad companies before they ruin the ad supported model.

I know that ads are annoying. It's a tough area to discuss, because everyone hates them but our site needs them to survive. I've gone months without AdBlock and don't really miss it. Apart from a 30-second ad to watch a minute-long video on YouTube, most ads really aren't that bad. Sure, some text off to the side or in the middle of an article is annoying, but I don't know any legitimate sites that have blaring, flashing ads. We don't, and neither does How-To Geek, Lifehacker, or other tech sites. I find that the noisy and intrusive ads show up more on seedy sites.

"extensions that block ads hurt the sites you love, including MakeUseOf" Blaming the user for blocking ads that YOU allowed to be served to them is not the solution. The advertising companies are who you should be blaming. They have allowed this trash because they make money off of it. FIX THE ADVERTISING and people will not have to use ad blockers to protect themselves from the garbage the ad companies are shoving in our face. The only way to stop this is to find a way to make it cost the ad companies some of their revenue. Then, I believe the problem of malicious advertising will dry up.

First, I'm not the one who deals with our ads, so if you'd like to talk to someone please visit our contact page.

Second, MakeUseOf doesn't allow pop-up ads or other types of malicious ads that change the page or prompt you for downloads. Our ads are non-intrusive and if you see one that's an issue, I'd ask you to let someone know so we can fix it, because we hate these bad ads too.

We don't have direct control over what ads you see, unfortunately. I wish all ads could be contained and respectful, but this just isn't the case.

I agree with Bben. And you just illustrated the problem--"We don’t have direct control over what ads you see...".
Until you do, and start taking responsibility for all that appears on your pages, I'll continue to use blockers.

good article...it never hurts to review this stuff. i just tried the link you gave for popuptest.com and Firefox blocked all successfully except the 'Drop Down popup'. is there a way to fix this? many thanks~

Ben is a Deputy Editor and the Sponsored Post Manager at MakeUseOf. He holds a B.S. in Computer Information Systems from Grove City College, where he graduated Cum Laude and with Honors in his major. He enjoys helping others and is passionate about video games as a medium.